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The buzzing in the Vulcan household was akin to that of an angry hornets nest after it had been poked. That was to say, it was completely silent beyond the gentle sound of many feet walking quickly about. Really, it was very little like a hornet’s nest except that, when compared to an angry nest, for Vulcans it was also a scene of tense agitation.
Spock watched from the corner of his eye from his office as his daughter, cousins, distant clansmen, and staff rushed here and there, each nearly silently searching for what was lost. It was… amusing. Yes, he was comfortable acknowledging it as such. At another time, another Spock would have been irritated by the interruption to their plans and been among them searching. However, at this time, this Spock sat there in silent amusement as he watched the buzz of the agitated hornets and wondered at how much longer the search would go on. If Christine had been there…
Christine.
Even decades after her death the thought of her being gone sent a pang through his heart. Closing his eyes he reached for the bond that was no longer there and mourned the connection that was missing. They’d come to each other late. The simple truth was that he’d been a fool when he was young, not seeing the woman right in front of him when they’d served on the Enterprise together first under Pike and then Jim. He’d been convinced that his path was to be Vulcan, to be the ideal Vulcan male, and to prove that his half-human status did nothing to affect his abilities in logic or reason. He’d wanted a Vulcan relationship with a Vulcan wife, denying the draw and desire he felt for the human woman as a weakness of his human self. He’d had T’Pring, an ideal Vulcan woman, to bond. Together they would be as he was supposed to be.
What a disaster that had been.
Even after T’Pring’s rejection of him he’d still denied Christine. Ignored her overtures for friendship and companionship. Denied her love. Yet after it all, after Gol, V’ger, Valeris, and the losses of Jim, his mother, and Scotty… Christine had still been there. She’d always been there.
The two of them had been circling each other like twin binary stars and he’d been too foolish and self-centered to see it. So he had approached her at last and been absolutely rejected.
It had turned out that with his denials of Christine, her love for him had withered and faded. He had lost her.
Standing, Spock switched off his station and strode to the door. His household was still full of searching people. Stepping out his his office he noticed his daughter, T'Manda, striding quickly down the hall. Nodding to her he noted the tight look in her eyes and around her mouth. Still missing then. Christine would have laughed. Then been furious with T'Manda for arranging all of this and himself for not stopping it.
His relationship with his daughter had been strained for some time though. As strained, or even possibly worse than his own relationship with Sarek. That was an accomplishment. One he had never intended. He had allowed all this to go through because it had been something that T'Manda and her husband, Tol said they wanted. He had not wished to push his daughter away from him again over a matter of importance to her. Now it appeared as if he’d be forced to interfere.
“T'Manda,” he said in greeting.
The tight look around her eyes and mouth increased. “Sa’mekh.”
“Is all well?”
“It is,” she assured him quickly. “However, the ceremony has been delayed. I will contact you when we are ready to depart.”
He nodded, not challenging her on the lie for it was clear that all was not well if the ceremony was delayed. “I will walk in the garden until it is time,” he said and strode off, T'Manda nodding in acknowledgement as she continued down the hall.
That was their relationship now. Christine would have been so disappointed in him. Though sometimes he looked at T'Manda and thought that Christine would have been disappointed in her as well.
At first he’d tried to respect that Christine loved him no more. She was never far from his mind though. Especially as it seemed that she now saw her so often. Her department in Ops frequently worked with his own people in the Ambassadors Office and it seemed like some months he was seeing Christine daily. It was too much. He had still wanted her.
It had taken a disastrous mission, an explosion, and Christine’s elbow landing in his face so hard she actually broke his nose to shatter his resolve. As she sheepishly visited him in sickbay to apologize for his nose he’d stuffily informed her that he was going to be pursuing her until she gave in and agreed to marry him. He would not be dissuaded. They had argued over his declaration, Christine had told him he was a selfish bastard, he had agreed on the first part but not the second, and she had stormed out of the room.
Yet she let him in to her office when he’d arrived the next day with roses and an invitation to dinner that night. She had let him pursue her, let him show her that his quiet regard and affection was genuine. Eventually she had given in. The pursuit had taken him longer then he hoped, but eventually he had the privilege of calling her bondmate and wife. She’d insisted on keeping her last name as even Spock typically neglected to use his clan name in professional dealings. He’d insisted that they follow the human custom and wear rings.
He still wore his ring today. Gazing down at it, glinting in the bright light of Vulcan, Spock regarded it quietly. Christine had been at first shocked, then embarrassed, but later pleased at his suggestion for rings. She’d chosen the bands, simple thin rings of gold with no ornamentation or markings. They had not needed more then that. It had pleased him though to see the physical representation of the oaths they had made to each other on her hand. Just as it pleased her to see the ring on his own finger.
They’d been happy in those early days.
Walking sedately through the household gardens, Spock stopped at where his mother’s rose garden had once stood. They had not survived long after her passing. The climate of Vulcan was too harsh for roses and without Amanda’s daily care they had withered and died. For a long time Sarek had left the garden that way, allowed the dead roses to stay as a testament to his lost wife, but eventually he had ordered them removed. A bench sat there now. A bench he associated only with his father sitting silent and alone in quiet meditation. Even after Sarek had taken a new bondmate he’d sat at that bench on the days when he was on Vulcan.
Now it was Spock who sat on that bench to remember. He sat, staring out over the desert as his household buzzed with activity behind him and wondered if he was doing the right thing. Was it better to build his relationship with T'Manda or to put his foot down and put an end to this nonsense?
What would Christine had done?
Being such a fool meant that by the time Spock had claimed Christine her natural fertility had nearly been at an end. His would have stretched on for decades more, long after Christine had passed naturally of old age, but the idea that he would wait until she was gone to father children was abhorrent to him. He’d taken her hand in his and asked Christine if she would try to give him a child, a piece of her and him together, and after some time she’d agreed.
It had not been easy. In the end it was only due to science and advances in fertility treatment that allowed Christine to become pregnant, to stay pregnant, and birth a healthy child. The pregnancy had been a difficult one as well. Christine had been ill often, had to regularly go on bedrest that she found boring and stifling. He’d held her in his arms on long days when she was forbidden from rising from the bed and listened to her weep in frustration and fear over the pregnancy and how dangerous it was for both her and the child. At times he’d regretting asking this of her, fear overtaking him as well over the thought that he might lose his wife or child in this endeavor. He could not lose them. It would mean his own destruction if he did.
Christine had shared her dreams for the child with him. The babe would be three-quarters human. Weaving dreams of a mostly-human child with elven ears, Christine had fantasized about playing with the faceless babe. Of laughter and cuddling and kisses and hugs.
T'Manda had been none of those things. Instead, despite her mostly human heritage, she’d been a small serious child who was loathe to laugh and preferred studying to playtime. An almost perfect Vulcan. That had not stopped Christine though. She’d adapted beautifully, supporting and loving their daughter in the way she needed instead of the way she’d hoped for. It had been Spock who’d found the difference between their dreams and reality harder to accept. It had been him who had attempted to force T'Manda into a more human shell as she struggled against his expectations.
In the end he’d repeated the mistakes of his own father and his open disapproval for T'Manda’s choices had pushed them further and further apart. And then when he’d lost Christine…
There was the ping of metal against metal coming from the flitter garage. He glanced towards the building then away as a distant cousin he did not even recall the name of passed nearby. Still looking then. Standing, he left the bench and continued to wander the garden, stopping to study the plants as he went. Making his way slowly to the garage he glanced over his shoulder to ensure no one was watching and slipped into the room, shutting and latching the door behind him.
The building was silent as he entered. Dark. The smell of engine coolant and grease was in the air.
Walking deeper into the building Spock found a small folding chair and took it with him, carrying it to where his private shuttle rested before setting down the chair and taking a seat. He regarded the shuttle quietly for a moment, trying to resist a smile. “Ko-fu, you’ve ruined your dress,” he said softly.
Silence, then a shuffling as a small girl crawled out from under the shuttle. Her silver dress was torn and stained with oil. Her long dark hair had been cut haphazardly into a mimicry of a boy’s cut but uneven as if it had been done with a dull knife in the dark. Which is how he imagined it had exactly happened. Wiping her nose with the back of her hands she glared at him with her bright blue eyes and scowled. “So?”
“I was just making an observation,” he said softly. Gesturing for her to continue, his eyes crinkled at his favorite granddaughter. His only granddaughter. “Go on, T'Pel. Do not allow me to stop you.”
Blue eyes gazing at him for another moment, T'Pel regarded her grandfather suspiciously before turning back to the shuttle. Digging a length of metal into a side panel she grunted loudly, putting her entire weight into peeling the metal away to get at the inside.
T'Pel had been the child Christine had dreamed of. Free-spirited and stubborn she was the very opposite of T'Manda and her husband Tol who was also so tightly bound to the traditions of Vulcan. He knew his daughter despaired of the child and what they could be done with her, but for him…
As grandfather he doted on the girl. Just as Sarek had doted on T'Manda and their relationship grew and grew as his own relationship with his daughter crumbled.
It had all fallen apart when Christine had died. It had been senseless. Sudden. He had been preparing for a diplomatic mission, putting together the personnel list who would be attending. He had also been preparing for his and Christine’s fifteenth wedding anniversary, mentally planning the dinner he would take her to and the gift he would buy. While such things were not done on Vulcan, he’d quickly learned that anniversaries were important to humans and fifteen years of marriage was to be a milestone for them.
His concentration was broken by feeling Christine’s shock through the bond. Then she was gone.
Gasping for breath he had not understood at first what had happened. Shaken, reeling for context, he’d called her comm over and over, but received no answer. He’d reached for her desperately through the bond but the more he tried to grasp at the thread that connected them the more it withered and died. By the time a representative from the Federation had arrived to inform him that Christine had died in a shuttle accident he had already recovered from weeping and been able to face the man with the full dispassionate face of a stoic Vulcan.
At least it had been quick. He’d felt that too through the bond.
So caught up in his own mourning he’d neglected T'Manda. The child had needed him, but all he’d needed was Christine. They’d drifted in their misery. He’d sent her to Vulcan and into the care of Sarek, not knowing what to do with her. T'Manda had thrived in the environment on Vulcan finding purpose and routine and he had… He had judged her for being too Vulcan, for refusing to embrace her mother’s human side. He had pushed her away while blaming her for not being more like Christine.
The child currently popping open the shuttle panel with her makeshift crowbar was so much like Christine it hurt sometimes. It went beyond the bright Terran sky blue eyes they shared. The way she looked at a problem and the way her lips turned in a scowl, the stubbornness that refused to give even when pushed to the limit, the loving nature that seemed to fill the child’s entire being. Sometimes Spock thought of T'Pel as Christine returned to haunt him. Fitting, as in a moment of concession to him, T'Manda had named her child in honor of Christine Chapel.
Watching her work, her brow set in stubbornness as her deft little fingers snapped wires, Spock couldn’t help but smile. “What are you doing, ko-fu?” he asked as the panel she was working on sparked.
T'Pel hissed and sucked on her dirty fingers for a moment before going back to work. “I’m running away,” she said confidently. Another spark and she let out a growl, kicking the shuttle before diving in with both hands and seizing the electrical panel. With a grunt, she began to pull.
“If you are planning to use the shuttle to escape I do not think your plan will work,” Spock said softly. Nearly reaching out to stop the child, he dropped his hand as T'Pel ripped the panel from the shuttle and dropped it to the floor, panting heavily from the effort. Her silver dress now had an additional grease stain across it making it look less silver and more grey. Her mother would be appalled. Christine probably would have shook her head and sighed deeply in frustrated bemusement.
“I don’t need the shuttle to escape,” T'Pel said proudly, glaring at him hotly. “I am dismantling it to ensure there is no pursuit. I’ve planned this escape out well and you will not stop me, sa’mekh-al.”
“I already said I would not stop you,” Spock reminded her gently. “However, I do find myself concerned with the idea of what the repair bill will be.” He glanced around the quiet hanger. “Have you dismantled all of these vehicles?”
“Yes!” T'Pel said proudly. She stomped on the panel until it broke in half, nodding in satisfaction. “This was the last one. All but that flitter, there. I will use that one to escape to ShiKhar and from there make my way off planet.”
He found himself to be both amused and annoyed at that proclamation. The repair bill for the crafts was likely to be very high indeed. Though he was already mentally composing the letter of complaint he would send to the manufacturer for being so badly designed that a seven year old could tamper with them. “You do not know how to fly a flitter, ko-fu.”
“I have been watching father. I’ve learned,” T'Pel said confidently.
“Ah, clever girl.” Reaching out a hand for her, he gave her his warmest smile. The one he reserved just for her, the most treasured of children. “Come and embrace me then, ko-fu. If you are going far away then you must say goodbye to me.”
“I’ll get your robes dirty.”
“I will no longer need these robes if you are gone,” Spock countered.
Considering this for a moment, T'Pel nodded. “That’s logical.” Without another second of hesitation she threw herself into Spock’s arms, wrapping her own short ones around him tightly as he pulled her up onto his lap. He ignored the grease that was being smeared onto his own formal robes for it was only clothing, it would be cleaned or replaced. His focus was only on the small child in his arms and how she hid a tremble as he pressed a kiss to the top of her head.
Stubborn girl. Like her grandmother. How Christine would have delighted to know of this difficult babe who threw entire households into disarray. Who had her blue eyes and spirit set against the world and was working to bend it to her will. How she would laugh to know how much Spock had bent to this child’s will.
Stroking the child’s back, Spock gently tugged at a strand of hair that had not been cut. “Your hair, ko-fu. What happened to it?”
“I cut it.” T'Pel’s reply was muffled by her face in his robe, her arms still so tight around him. “Skaark told me yesterday that my hair was the only thing that made me look Vulcan. So I cut it.”
“That was rude of him. T'Pel, if your bondmate to be is being rude, your mother can-“
“NO!” T'Pel suddenly shouted. She pulled away from Spock, glaring up at him furiously as her little hands clenched into fists. “I’m not bonding him! Not ever! I hate him and I never want to see him again.” Tears welled up in Christine’s bright blue eyes and dripped down her face, the little girl not bothering to wipe them away. “And don’t say that I’ll understand when I’m older like Mama or that it’s good I have passion for Skaark like Papa! I don’t want to bond him and I never, ever will!”
Frozen in the face of her emotion, Spock nodded slowly. “I understand. However, can you tell me why you do not wish to be bonded with Skaark? Your mother thinks him a very good match.”
“He’s mean. He says I can’t be Vulcan cause Mama’s too human and pulls my hair. Yesterday, in front of everybody, he said to me ‘wife, attend me,’ and when I threw sand at him he pushed me and said he’d send me to training to learn to be his wife.” Spock winced sympathetically, the one time he had attempted to ask Christine to attend him in the blunt manner of Vulcan had been the last time as well. She had not taken kindly to the firmly worded request. T'Pel continued on, determination trembling through her entire tiny form. “I will not attend anyone. I will not bond anyone. I am running away to Q’onoS, becoming a Klingon, and there’s nothing you can do about it!”
A Vulcan child who wished to become a Klingon. Christine would have laughed until she cried.
Blinking, Spock nodded slowly. “Ko-fu, there are other ways to break a bond rather then running away to the Klingon Empire. There’s the kal-if-fee for example-”
“No!” T'Pel said passionately. “I’m not getting bonded to him in the first place. The koon-ut-kal-if-fee is stupid anyway. I’d have to wait twenty-one whole years for stupid Skaark to go into pon farr to break the bond and I’d have to find a champion to fight him. I wouldn’t even be allowed to fight Skaark myself! And if I did get a champion, I’d belong to him after. On Q’onoS you’re allowed to fight if someone you don’t like wants to marry you. Women can form their own houses and don’t have to listen to their stupid Papas about why you gotta marry for the clan. So I’m going to become a Klingon and run away and if stupid Skaark or stupid Papa try to chase me I’ll fight them! Because I’m Klingon now and am allowed to fight!”
What would T'Manda want him to say in a situation like this? Likely she would have wanted him to take T'Pel and force her back to the household so she could be scrubbed, changed, and her hair dealt with before she had managed to disable the family shuttle. Likely they would already be on their way to the engagement ceremony, T'Pel in tears and the memory of Christine furious with him.
Christine had still been alive when T'Manda had become of age to take part in the Koon’ul engagement ceremony. A few offers for their daughter had come in, but it had been mostly interest from other families within the clan to strengthen the ties that bound them. T’Manda had not been considered a good match, too human, but the connections to the powerful Ambassador offices that Sarek and Spock held meant that at least some families were willing to tie their sons to his daughter. It had infuriated Christine. Driven her mad that anyone would dare suggesting marrying their daughter when she was still in grade school. She had ranted and raved and spat and seethed over the insanity of Vulcans until she went to bed with a migraine and he joined her, wrapping his arms around her and nuzzling against her neck in a silent apology and agreement with her horror.
They’d decided that T’Manda would not be bound. That she’d be free to make her own mate choice.
After Christine’s death, Sarek had arranged her engagement to Tol. Spock had not argued. He’d been too caught up in work and grief to formulate a protest. Another way he had failed his daughter.
He could not fail T'Pel. Not when she was standing before him rejecting Vulcan tradition. She was not like T'Manda who had only wished to be Vulcan. T'Pel was like Christine, a flame burning bright and strong despite the winds that blew. He would not see her smothered or her spirit blown out.
Cupping her small cheek with his large hand, Spock gently brushed away the little girl’s tears. “I understand,” he said quietly. “When I was your age I did not wish to be bonded as well. I accepted my father’s wishes and spent the years afterwards running from my mate. When I was forced to return to her I discovered that I had lost her esteem and she no longer wanted me either. I think now that we would not have been happy together.”
“You had someone before ko’mekh-il?” T'Pel asked, leaning into his touch.
“Yes. Your grandmother and I found each other late. Or rather, she found me and I was too much of a fool to realize how important she would become to me before I had almost lost her as well.”
“I wish I had known her. You make her sound nice.”
“I wish you had known her too. She would have delighted to know you.” Pulling the child close, Spock carefully encircled her in his arms again and held her in a gentle embrace. “If you travel to Q’onoS I will miss you, ko-fu. It is very far away.”
“I’ll miss you too, sa’mekh-al.”
He rubbed her back. “Perhaps there are other places you could go that would not be so far. Earth can be rather pretty this time of year.”
“Earth is not Q’onoS. They do not allow you to fight on Earth.”
“There are other ways to fight besides with blades, ko-fu. And you are not alone.”
Sniffling, T'Pel looked up at him with her large blue eyes. Eyes like the ocean. Like the blue sky of Earth he’d fly through to remember Christine. “You’d fight with me?”
Pressing their foreheads together, Spock smiled. “For you, ko-fu, I’d take up a bat’leth and drink blood wine. Though I will not eat gagh. Even I have limits.”
Giggling, T'Pel threw her arms around his neck and hugged him tight. “I love you, sa’mekh-al.”
“And I love you, ko-fu. Now, while I know you have your heart set on Q’onoS and becoming Klingon I do believe Earth might be a better choice. After all, we are both half-human.”
“Indeed,” T'Pel said seriously. She took his hand as he stood from the chair, leading him to the final flitter that was still in operation. The rest had all clearly been dismantled, the broken panels and jutting wires a testament to her determination. Spock shook his head mentally at the repair bill and composed a few more lines of the letter he would send to the manufacturer over their neglect in design. Though perhaps they had never expected that a determined enough seven year old who wanted to become a Klingon would exist and attempt to bypass their designs.
Hopping into the final flitter, T'Pel paused and looked up at him with her wide eyes. “What will we tell Mama and Papa? They will be angry.”
“They will accept my decision,” Spock said, getting in himself and shutting the door behind him. “Today we will go to ShiKhar. There, I will buy you a new dress-“
“Pants,” she interrupted him, crossing her arms and glaring at him hotly. “Like how a Klingon wears.”
“Pants then. We shall also have someone take a look at your hair,” Spock said fondly. He reached to press the button that would open the hanger door only for T'Pel to beat him to it. Raising an eyebrow at her, he watched her engage the flitter systems, override the security lock that briefly attempted to deny her the ability to fly, and set a preliminary course for the capitol. Ah. She had serious when she said that she’d been learning. The condemning letter he was mentally writing to the flitter manufacturer doubled in length. “We will stay in the Federation Embassy and I will speak to your mother about the bonding. Or rather, the lack thereof.”
“And if Mama says that I gotta do it?” T'Pel asked, engaging the engines.
Spock swapped controls to his own system, ignoring the furious look the little girl gave him as he smoothly lifted the flitter into the air. The child might have been learning to fly, but he was not going to risk both their lives to see if her theory was as good as experience. “I am her father and the head of this household. We will talk and I will make her listen.” He hoped.
T'Manda and Tol were consummate Vulcans. They would likely bend to his will, unhappily, and follow his commands as the leader of their family. Or at least they would bend enough in this one thing. Afterwards, things would be more difficult. He would have to see if T’Manda would agree to send her daughter to earth. To let her grow up free and strong until the candle that was her soul burned brighter then a torch. Perhaps he could phrase it as as a favor as Tol was overdue to reenter pon farr and T’Manda would likely be with child again soon.
He would welcome a second grandchild. Even if it was not like T'Pel, even if it did not remind him so of Christine, he would love it for them both.
High in the sky, Spock allowed the controls to revert back to the child and he watched carefully as she confidently piloted them through the sky. Fascinating. She was quite good at flying. Better than he would have expected a carefully cloistered child to be. Checking his comm, he sent a message to T’Manda informing her they would speak this evening. Then he messaged the rest of the family, formally cancelling the Koon’ul ceremony. Turning his comm unit off before anyone could respond he settled down into his seat and watched the scenery of Vulcan fly by below them.
He wondered what Christine would think of him now if she had still been with him. How he might now be on a path that would destroy what was left of his relationship with T’Manda. How he had chosen to protect T'Pel.
He hoped she would be pleased with him. He hoped she would have laughed at this strange half-Vulcan, half-human child who wished to become a Klingon to escape her fate. He hoped she would have been pleased with them both.
Reaching out for the bond he sighed as he felt it empty. He missed her.
Curious, he looked over to the girl and asked the question that hovered in his mind. “Ko-fu, why have you chosen to become a Klingon and not a Romulan? Romulans do not have the same customs as us, they would not require you to bond, but they are biologically much more similar.”
T’Pel snorted and her expression was so much like Christine’s when she had thought he was being foolish that it made his heart skip a beat. “Klingons are cool,” she said flatly. “Romulans are dumb.”
Spock laughed.